Canon Legria Mini X review

Vlogging, or video blogging is hardly a new phenomenon but it’s bigger now than it has ever been. Many YouTube stars make do with the webcam built into their laptops or smartphone camera, there’s a market for those looking for better quality video and audio to increase the production values of their creations. The Sony HDR-MV1 was one of the first, and the Canon Legria Mini X Is the latest.

While the HDR-MV1 was slim and tall, the Canon Legria Mini X is squat and flat, which we much prefer. It measures 30x82x109mm so is slightly larger than the HDR-MV1 but it remains respectably light at 205g. It’s small enough to fit in a pocket or throw in a bag for impromptu videos.

The HDR-MV1 had an LCD screen, but its placement on the side of the unit meant it was difficult to frame videos when shooting ‘selfies’. The Legria Mini X’s articulating screen is a far better approach; it has a two-hinged design that can be propped up and rotated vertically for selfie videos, tilted straight back to shoot video in a more conventional way, or folded flat for storage. An orientation sensor inside the display automatically rights itself depending on use.

A kickstand in the base of the camera can be tilted and angled in various ways, although each position tilts the camera upwards, which is rarely the most flattering angle. There is a standard tripod thread in the base though, so you could always attach the camera to a tripod for more angle options.

The 2.7in LCD screen is also a capacitive touchscreen, which makes changing settings much easier than dealing with buttons. We did find some of the icons a tad small in the menus and struggled with the onscreen keyboard, as typing required a lot of precision to avoid spelling errors. Fortunately it’s not something you’ll do often. The screen is also reasonably bright, so is usable outdoors, and is a quick way of playing back footage. The 230,000-dot resolution makes footage look rather grainy, however.

The Legria Mini X has built-in Wi-Fi for connecting to the optional CameraAccess Plus app. It’s available on iOS and Android, but at time of writing Android 5.0 Lollipop isn’t supported. Both platforms work identically, letting you remotely control the camera from a phone or tablet. Live view has around a 2.5 second delay, however, which feels jarring. The Legria’s microphones also relay audio to your device, which is useful for monitoring sound. You can also connect directly to the camera to access and play back the videos from the SD card through a browser interface.

‘Monitor while Out’ mode lets you connect the camera to your home Wi-Fi, then access it remotely via the internet to use it as an IP camera. You can input your Wi-Fi details directly on the Legria’s touchscreen, which is slicker than other IP cameras that rely on companion apps or computers. Alternatively you can use WPS for push-button pairing.

Pairing the camera with a free Canon Image Gateway account will let you directly upload videos to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. The process can be a little slow, however, as we often found ourselves staring at loading screens while the video camera connected to the internet.

The Legria Mini X’s lens has an f/2.8 aperture and 160-degree field-of-view in video mode, expanding to 170-degrees when shooting still images. It records 24Mbps AVCHD video at 1080p/25p resolution, although we found videos to be slightly soft with a considerable amount of purple fringing between the high contrast areas such as buildings against sky. There was also some mosquito noise. Indoors, where the Legria Mini X is arguably most likely to be used, there was a lot of noise in the shadow details.

The 160-degree wide-angle lens also introduces a lot of barrel distortion, meaning those closest to the camera aren’t presented in the most attractive way. Zooming in corrects the barrel distortion, but there’s only one zoom level and this uses digital zoom so you sacrifice some image quality. The Legria Mini X can also capture 12-megapixel still images, but without ample light these appear noisy.

 ^Best viewed full screen and in 1080p

Battery life was excellent, however; shooting 1080p MP4 video and AAC audio lasted two hours and 52 minutes on a single charge.

The twin stereo microphones can capture Linear PCM audio. This is important for anyone that values audio fidelity, as it’s completely lossless. Linear PCM audio is only available when you record in AVCHD mode and results in large video sizes, however, so you’ll need to invest in a sizable SD card. There’s no built-in storage, and no memory card included in the box either. The microphones have integrated windshields to cut down on unwanted noise, and there are also 3.5mm mic and headpone jacks for connecting an external microphone and monitoring levels.

Microphone sensitivity was impressive; shooting from our roof to capture the ambient sounds of London traffic and construction, it was able to pick up even the faintest sounds from a large distance. Directionality was great too, with sound following the direction of the camera. You can also apply different audio scenes including speech, noise suppression and meeting, with the latter clearly detecting multiple speakers.

^microphone test – the Canon Legria Mini X was able to capture the speaker’s voice clearly and you can even just about hear the other side of the call (excuse the awkward camera angle)

The Legria Mini X gets a lot of things right, particularly the articulating screen that makes it ideal for shooting selfie videos. The microphones are super sensitive and the audio captured is of high quality. However, video quality was disappointing and we preferred footage shot on the Sony HDR-MV1. As it stands, each camera has its pros and cons, so which is the best for you will be dependent on what you’ll mainly be filming.